


Two Halves of a Whole

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Within the Wires (Podcast)
Genre: Claudia being a poetic little shit, F/F, Late Night Conversations, Roimata getting the love and attention she deserves, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, just the two of them being happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Claudia Atieno does not like being put on a pedestal. Once people think highly of her, they don't work to understand her art. They assume, if they do not get it right away, that it is above them. They assume there is always some hidden meaning. But Roimata tries. She searches for intention, for purpose, and she asks the questions left unposed. If only Roimata knew all of this too...





	Two Halves of a Whole

She watched the light change in the room, moment by moment. There was a chink in the curtain, letting through a shard of white-blue light, and she watched it shift as clouds drifted over the moon in the outside world. Despite the ceiling between her and the sky, she had the curious feeling that she was gazing at the stars from where she lay on her back.

She stripped away all her preconceptions about the colours of the room, and saw them as they were in that moment; blues and purples that washed out the scene, but stayed distinct in themselves.

She hadn’t thought Claudia was awake, nestled in the crook of her arm and breathing slowly, but then she turned over and looked Roimata in the eyes. She wasn’t perfectly awake, but she was definitely far from sleep.

Their foreheads came together, and they stayed like that for a while, breathing in each other’s air. Roimata looked at the violet and navy and turquoise strokes of colour on her skin, the pale blue whites of her eyes and the dark, dark aqua that her green irises had turned.

Roimata could tell Claudia was about to speak before she did; she took in a slightly deeper breath, different enough that she could feel the disruption in the rhythm. She asked, “Are you intimidated by me?”

The way she asked it was complicated. It was soft, the right tone for the early hours of the morning, but not exactly gentle. It was a question she wanted an answer to, and that’s how she asked it. But at the same time, there was something melancholy about it.

Roimata didn’t have time to puzzle it out completely before she answered, “Yes.” She had learned a long time ago that with Claudia it was best to be direct. She wasn’t someone that ever took offense at responses like this. She was much more likely to be frustrated by someone that used euphemisms and danced around a tricky subject.

“The subject doesn’t have to be tricky,” she would say. “Just tell me what you think.”

Roimata didn’t try to explain her answer, because it seemed to her that Claudia was not implying that she shouldn’t be intimidated, or that she was right to be. She just wanted to know if she was.

“I wish you weren’t,” she said, with a slight sigh, and she turned onto her back. Roimata could see her eyes moving back and forth along the ceiling as she searched for the words. “Why are you intimidated by me?” she asked, turning her head again to look at her.

Roimata was surprised by this question, and that almost made her laugh. Claudia was always surprising her, even now. It seemed so plainly obvious why. She thought about how exactly to word her answer. “Because… as an artist, you seem… untouchable.”

At this, Claudia rolled back onto her side so that they were face to face again. Roimata felt her hand reach out to her arm, and she smiled. She let Claudia pull her onto her side. They both knew that that hadn’t been what she meant, but she couldn’t deny that having that warmth, that closeness, was nice. When they were together like this, legs entwined and sharing breaths, ‘untouchable’ seemed a million miles away.

“When an artist becomes an Artist,” she pondered, “they become Art themselves. I do a warmup sketch, it’s Art. I paint a collection of garbage, it’s Art. I go to the market, it’s Art. This is why you feel this way.”

Roimata didn’t feel like this was quite right, and she frowned as she tried to formulate a response. “But your technique is…” She didn’t have a word to capture it quite right, but it seemed Claudia did not need one.

“Technique is nothing without meaning. People place meaning on my art because it is mine. Better artists than me have failed because people could not understand their meaning,” she said.

Roimata couldn’t conceive of a better artist than Claudia Atieno, but maybe that was her point. Her paintings were Atieno Paintings. That was where the value lay, for many. Not in what she was trying to say, or even how the painting looked. It was enough that it was simply an Atieno. Meaning was assigned. Technique was assumed.

Claudia’s hand travelled up to Roimata’s face, stroking her cheek with her thumb. She said, “You are wonderful, Roimata,” and kissed her, with lips as soft as her voice. When she pulled back, her hand remained on her face, and Roimata took her own hand up to Claudia’s neck to match.

“There is art in your words,” she said. There was a gentle pause, padding between her speech that seemed necessary to keep from waking the sleeping world. “Some people speak, and their words are vehicles, taking them from one place to the next. When you speak, you create landscapes. You bring questions to the unquestionable. You bring the meaning out of the sketch for everyone to see.”

Roimata moved her head back a bit, trying to get a better look at Claudia’s face. “You went to the Tate Modern?” she asked.

“Yes,” she answered with a slightly bemused smile, as if to say, ‘Of course.’

She groaned a little and covered her face with her hand, taking it away from Claudia’s neck. Her skin burned at the thought of her listening to her description of their first meeting, and those weeks they spent together.

Claudia laughed gently and took her hand away from her face with the same care. “You asked me to consider what I meant, and I found that I did not know until you told me. You are what was missing from my paintings. Your words. You move with your words in a way I cannot.”

Roimata wasn’t sure how to respond. She could have said that her words were simply a description of what Claudia had created, an accompaniment, but she knew that that was not how Claudia saw it. She never visited her own exhibitions. She rarely even liked to look through art that she had finished. But something was different here, for some reason. Could she say for certain that it wasn’t her?

“You complete my art, Roimata,” she declared, and although it was still in the quiet early-morning tone, she commanded so much confidence with the statement that Roimata had no choice but to believe her.

“You say you’re no good with words, and then you come out with something like that,” Roimata teased. There was quiet in the seconds that followed. She feared that her comment might be out of place, that Claudia felt it was undermining her point.

She was staring intently in the dark. Her eyes were unwavering, but there was a tremor in her throat when she swallowed. “We are made for each other,” Claudia whispered. Roimata glimpsed, in that moment, a vulnerability that she rarely exposed. A desire born from loneliness. A request.

Roimata believed her. She leaned in and kissed her on the lips, a smile punctuating her breaths. She was feeling the same rush in her heart that she felt when she went diving off the cliffs. Soaring, briefly, and then being embraced by warm water that was safe and inviting. She tasted Claudia’s air in her lungs. Felt her skin under hers. Mixing together like paint on a palette in blues and purples. Together. Complete.


End file.
